Stop me if you've heard this before: I slept late on my compressed day. 9:45! It was wonderful, and I have so much better dreams between six and nine.

But then it was time to get to work: I walked the dog and had breakfast, then took myself off to Publix for the twofers. I found some good sales and I had a really nice guy help me out with my groceries. He and his wife own five dachshunds! Oh, and I picked up "Better Homes & Gardens' Christmas Ideas," when I got home I found the Christmas edition of "Early American Life" in the mailbox, and at Publix I saw gallons of Peppermint Stick ice cream. So Christmas is indeed creeping up as we sleep, on little cat feet as in "Prufrock."

Amazingly, I didn't stop at Sprouts, but then I had to get home. James accidentally took the boneless pork ribs out of the freezer, so now I had to make gravy. I'm trying some no-sugar tomato sauce I got at Ollie's Bargain Outlet. And it literally is that: tomato sauce! Not even any salt. So I had to add basil (for a while I thought we didn't have any) and I also put some granulated onion and garlic in it. We can add our own salt (and the Romano cheese is salty anyway). We are going to have to add tomato paste to it to thicken it, though.

I spent the afternoon doing that as well as finishing Lucy Lethbridge's book Servants.When James came home from work, we went to Fresh2Order for supper, not having eaten there in a while. I notice that they have made the soup bowls smaller! Still, the creamy chicken vegetable soup is still as filling as ever. We considered checking out the mall, but the only thing interesting there anymore is the Hallmark shop. Oh, there's an Apple store upstairs now. Yippee.

Instead we crossed over to Costco. We needed milk anyway—and they didn't have any! skim milk anyway. We did get some chicken salad, soap, and a new pair of slippers for James. Once home, it was the final sally with Tucker, and then stayed up very late, James reading online and me reading Frances Brody's A Medal for Murder. The plot was so convoluted that I had to see it through to the end even if I stayed up until one a.m. And so I did.

But we were sleeping late Saturday because we had to be up early today. In fact, we barely got up in time for James to get dressed to get to his lunch with the guys followed by his club meeting. The moment he was off I packed Tucker in the car and took him to Unleashed for a bath. Naturally he looked as pathetic as possible and whined through the entire affair. At least he wasn't as bad as the boxer that had to be carried in.

I got him home and pulled out his bedding to wash, finding more shredded paper inside the crate, and then decided to go to Hobby Lobby. Spent about a half hour happily winding in and out of the autumn and Christmas aisles. Since all the Christmas craft items were 40 percent off, I got a few bits of things, mostly woodsy picks to finish a winter bouquet I started last winter with clearance items. Some of the floral foam was still showing. I also returned the dishwasher kit Lowes had made us buy with the dishwasher; it came with its own connector and we didn't need it.

Came home, did some vacuuming, sat and read my "Victorian Homes" magazine until James arrived. By now the cool front had come through, so we had supper at Tin Drum and ate outside, which we haven't been able to do since April. We stopped at Barnes & Noble for a few minutes, then were headed home when I proposed ice cream for dessert. So we backtracked to Baskin/Robbins on Dallas Highway, and then, since we were coming by Kroger anyway, stopped to get the milk Costco didn't have, along with some bread for my lunch sandwiches, cornstarch, and some turkey thighs. Found Aubrey Spivey working checkout, but she wasn't allowed to check me out; you can't check out friends. Didn't know that! Anyway, it meant we didn't have to go there today, and by the time I walked Tucker it was already in the 60s and lovely out!

Got up this morning at 7:30 in order to get to the Yellow Daisy Festival early. It was a gorgeous, sunny 55°F out and it was a delight to walk the dog and just loiter instead of chivvying him to get inside out of the heat. James opened all the windows before we left, and, so we could drive with the windows down, I put my pashmina on. Didn't need it by the time we arrived at Stone Mountain Park 45 minutes later.

We got there about 9:30 and didn't leave until after 2...it was the best weather for Yellow Daisy ever! It wasn't even 74 when we left! We could stroll slowly and not have to mop our faces with chill cloths and buy iced water bottles as in previous years. We bought the first of our two yearly fudge desserts, James got a new leather belt with the kind of buckle he likes, we bought some barbecue sauce, a couple of dip mixes, and bagged three Christmas gifts. We were starving by the time we left, but the broad expanse of lawn around which all the food vendors were arranged was starting to look like the Marriott on the Friday of DragonCon, and all the seats under cover were filled, so we just grabbed an ear of roasted corn each and came home. Of course this wasn't the end of it because we had to stop for a paper (so back to Kroger we went), and then once the truck was in, I had to take my car to Kroger (again!) to fill it up.

Had Asian chicken salad for supper, watched the final two episodes of The Astronaut Wives' Club and also the Rick Sebak special A Few Good Pie Places. The pies looked yummy but I'm getting a bit tired of Sebak doing food specials. Let's go back to interesting stuff like parks, buildings, and highways, too. Later on, via our free Acorn TV trial, I watched part 1 of the new Tommy and Tuppence adventures with Jessica Raine and David Walliams. I can't say I was thrilled. Tommy and Tuppence used to be a lot more fun in their original television incarnations, and they switched the setting from the 1920s to the 1950s. Tommy seems rather lumbering and rather foolishly trying to raise bees; Tuppence gets them involved in an "adventure" and then starts panicking about it! It's really sad because Jessica Raine strikes me as perfect for Tuppence.

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